The Product Design Paradox
Product teams at financial services firms face a fundamental paradox: the data they use to design products only reflects the behaviour of customers who already chose their firm. This creates a circular feedback loop where products are optimised for existing customers rather than designed for market demand.
Consider a platform that sees strong uptake of its Cash ISA product. Internal data might suggest doubling down on cash savings features. But cross-provider data could reveal that the broader market is rapidly shifting toward Stocks & Shares ISAs, and the firm’s Cash ISA strength actually reflects a customer base that is lagging market trends — not leading them.
What Internal Data Cannot Tell You About Product Demand
Internal data is excellent at showing what customers do within your product suite. It cannot answer the strategic questions that drive product innovation:
| Internal data shows | But you need to know |
| Which of your products customers use | Which products they use at competitors |
| Feature adoption within your platform | Feature demand across the market |
| Wrapper distribution in your book | How consumers combine wrappers across providers |
| Contribution levels to your products | Total household contribution behaviour across all products and providers |
Cross-Provider Demand Signals
Cross-provider behavioural data provides the demand signals that transform product strategy from internal guesswork to market-driven design:
Wrapper Combination Patterns
Our data reveals how consumers actually structure their finances across providers. For example, we can see that consumers in the 45–54 age band increasingly combine SIPP contributions with Stocks & Shares ISA holdings while maintaining low credit utilisation — a cross-provider pattern that no single firm can observe internally. Products designed for this multi-wrapper, multi-provider reality are fundamentally different from products designed for single-wrapper customers.
Contribution and Drawdown Trends
Internal data shows contribution levels to your products. Cross-provider data shows contribution behaviour across the market — revealing whether your customers are contributing more or less than market norms, and where the balance of their saving is going. This is essential intelligence for pricing, packaging, and feature prioritisation.
Provider Switching Drivers
When consumers switch providers, cross-provider data reveals what pulls them — lower fees, better digital experience, wider fund range, drawdown flexibility, or simply better rates. This is direct competitive intelligence for product design: it tells you exactly which features drive consumer decisions in the market you are trying to win.
Unmet Demand
Perhaps most valuable, cross-provider data can reveal demand that no provider is currently meeting. When consumers consistently model scenarios that existing products cannot serve, this represents a genuine market opportunity. Our data has identified several such patterns, including:
- Consumers trying to model cross-wrapper tax optimisation (ISA + pension + drawdown) in a single tool — suggesting demand for integrated wrapper management
- High engagement with inheritance tax modelling among consumers with modest estates — suggesting demand for simpler, lower-cost estate planning products
- Repeated modelling of early access to pension funds among under-55s — indicating demand for more flexible pre-retirement products
From Signals to Product Decisions
Cross-provider demand signals support product decisions at every stage:
- Discovery: Identify unmet demand and feature gaps using market-wide behavioural data
- Design: Build product features that match how consumers actually structure their finances across providers, not just within your platform
- Validation: Test product hypotheses against market-wide behaviour before committing to development
- Launch: Target product launches at segments where demand signals are strongest, using cross-provider profiles to identify the right audiences
- Iteration: Monitor post-launch adoption against market benchmarks and adjust features based on evolving demand signals
The Competitive Advantage
In a market where most firms design products using only internal data, access to cross-provider demand signals is a genuine competitive advantage. It means your product decisions are based on the full market picture rather than the partial view your own data provides.
This advantage compounds over time. Each product cycle informed by cross-provider intelligence produces better-fit products, which attract more customers, which generates more data, which enables even better product decisions. The firms that invest in this intelligence now will build a product development capability that competitors relying on internal data alone cannot match.
Key Takeaway
Product teams that rely on internal data are designing for their existing customers, not the market they want to win. Cross-provider behavioural data provides the demand signals that transform product strategy from internal optimisation to market-driven innovation. In a competitive financial services landscape, this is the difference between building products customers settle for and products customers choose.